Page 175 of Sparktopia
I mean, it goes way,waybeyond that. But this is the take-home message for me. Jasina can sort the details, she’s the one with the fuckin’ notes. But this is all I need to know.
It’s nearly one in the morning now. Jasina has been writing, and rewriting, and outlining, and paraphrasing everything my father said since we saw the blue man hovering above our city like a threat.
He has my Clara.
He has my Clara.
That’s the real message. The only one I can concentrate on as Jasina does all her busywork with her notes.
I’m not delusional. I understand that I bear some responsibility for what’s happening. I gave her to him. I handed her over.
But it’s much easier if the enemy is not me so I table all thoughts about how badly I fucked up and concentrate on what’s coming next instead.
I go back into the room, close the door, and look at the countdown. We’ve got five hours, forty-seven minutes, and sixteen seconds. Which doesn’t seem possible.
Where the hell did five hours go?
I exit the room, leaving the door open, and pace in front of the windows, trying to sort out all the many, many things I have learned tonight.
There’s still a crowd down in front of the god’s tower even though the blue sphere of spark, and the couple kissing inside it, disappeared last night and didn’t return.
I’m surprised when Mitch doesn’t come back to escort Jasina home. But then again, not really. Because if all that I’ve learned about Mitch is true, he’s panicking. And it’s got nothing to do with the down-city girls.
It’s because heknows.
He knows about all of this.
He knows what this room does, he knows what the tower is, he knows there are devils pretending to be gods, and he knows that the augment we all saw kissing my Clara last night is something that’s neither human or machine, but both.
And the augment has Clara.
But even more importantly, as far as Mitch is concerned, the whole fucking city now knows that Clara Birch is alive. Nothere, but alive. And not only that, they think that man was the god.
They think they sawGod.
Theyare not panicked, they are celebrating.
And this wasn’t in the plan.
Neither was I, actually. I was just some dumb fool whose father kept him in the dark. Was he protecting me? Was I a ploy? Or did he just realize that his life’s work was about to beupended by this false god, and I was his last-ditch effort to save his legacy?
I guess I’ll never know. It’ll haunt me, I’m sure. I’ll probably write a book about it one day and it will be filled with nothing but spite.
Neither here, nor there.
Because the motivations of the last Extraction Master aren’t important. What’s important is that in five hours and however many minutes and seconds, Tau City will be gone.
I know this because that’s what the countdown is. It’s set to blow the Extraction Tower, but taking out the tower takes out the Looking Glass. And my father was very clear on what, exactly, this Looking Glass does.
“Firstly, the Looking Glass controls the tower doors. It opens them. But more importantly, it communicates with the god’s world, Finn. Without the Looking Glass, there is no connection. And without this connection, the city will die. The explosion of the Extraction Tower won’t be enough to take out the whole of Tau City, but it will mark the beginning of the end of everything. And I know what you’re thinking, son. You’re thinking… this is a terrible idea. But you only think that because you are unable to imagine how much worse it could get. There is no easy way out. The time for an easy way out is long past. This must be done or the worlds will never be the same again. We will never have this chance again. We must end it, Finn.Youmust end it.”
The end.
The end of us, yes.
But more importantly, the end ofthem.
The god in the tower, his augment, and my Clara as well.
